Louise Woodcock andJennifer McDonald are artists working predominantly in installation and performance. Sharing similar concerns, Louise and Jennifer explore concepts of gender, being particularly influenced by Julia Kristeva’s seminal work Powers of Horror. Over the past year, Louise and Jennifer have collaborated on a performance piece developing sound objects – hollow plaster ‘eggs’ that are played with a variety of tools, including bones and nails. Both artists further founded Womb – a collective of female musicians, which has up to twelve members per session.

On recently discovering the work of Derek Jarman, Louise and Jennifer are using their week in residency at Islington Mill to embark on a new film project. In their first use of film Jennifer and Louise will draw together a number of recent influences.

Having arrived back from India following a two month residency in the country’s rainforest area Jennifer will bring a selection of her research material, documentation of her travels and Indian instruments to the collaborative project. Having written her degree dissertation on the Upanishads (ancient Indian Philosophical texts) before practicing art, Louise will add a layer of history and philosophy to the project producing a rich mix of imagery and associations.

Jennifer and Louise will use the residency period to develop objects and sets for their film work. Throughout the week Jennifer and Louise will record a variety of acoustic sound, voice and instrumentation, layering the recordings upon a series of film sequences to create an intriguing interplay of audio and visual environments.

An edited version of the film will be publicly screened at the end of their residency period alongside a display of the objects, instruments and constructed sets used throughout the development of the filmwork.

We spent all day yesterday filming around Sabden, around Pendle Hill famous for witch trials. We started by just shooting anything we found appealing. As the day progressed we became more focused and began to perform and use sculptural objects we bought with us in different locations and performances. We used hair and bones in ritualistic style actions.

Jennifer and I will hold a talk tomorrow at 6pm (2 June 2011) at Islington Mill discussing our influences and our working process. The initial edit of the film will be screened on Sunday at Islington Mill. Womb will be performing a live improvisation with the film along with objects that were used.

The initial synopsis (even though we haven’t finished it and don’t quite know the outcome!):
The film features two women (the resident artists Jennifer McDonald and Louise Woodcock) in Pendle Hill, famous for it’s association with the witch trials. The characters perform ritualistically using tribal symbols including animal bones, hair and wool. The film will be displayed with sculptural objects that were used in the film and with a live improvised soundtrack from Womb.

After my talk at the funeral, I was interviewed by Manchester Mule (click for the full article). This is an exerpt:

Louise Woodcock, a local artist speaking at the event, said to MULE that the cuts show that the government “doesn’t value art, and are just focusing on things that make money, rather than things that might be meaningful and valuable in other ways.

“We need more meaningful activities and more meaningful forms of communication to make sense of the world, especially when things are difficult – art is how we do that, so at a time like this it’s an essential thing to have in our lives.”

Rosanne Robertson, organiser of the Manchester Artists Bonfire, said the purpose of the event had been partly to bring together artists and other groups of people fighting against the cuts, saying that their concerns “all tie into the same thing: we’re not happy with the way things are and we need an orchestrated response.”

My talk focused on broad ideas about funding for the arts. I discussed the Coalition proposition that we are to accept that the arts should be one of the first things to be cut and that we all have to tighten our belts in this time of recession. I discussed the fact that we are being asked to believe that it’s our responsibility, the people on the street, to make sacrifices to help the ruined economy, not the people who caused the damage. I discussed how the Roosevelt government during the Great Depression in the US during the 1930’s poured money into the arts and other public services. I talked about how the American art establishment and economy is still reaping the benefits of movements like Abstract Expressionism which could not have thrived without early support from the ‘New Deal‘ strategy. I discussed the fact that Orson Welles Macbeth, featuring black actors in lead roles from Harlem would not have happened. I discussed the need for art in our lives especially at a time when we have little resources and feel an urgent need to communicate and to express ourselves, to make sense of the world.

Rosanne Robertson’s talk focused more on the local issues around the cuts especially to the Greenroom and the Castlefield Gallery who are both about to lose all their arts council funding. Rosanne also discussed the need we have for art in a broad sense as well as locally.

Womb performed after Rosanne and I spoke. We used Indian Singing Bowls, used the coffins as percussion and wailed. This was Rosannes first performance with us. Rosanne played the stylaphone. The mood felt sombre but celebratory. There was a definite feeling of positivity, of not of giving up. Someone joined in on a trumpet playing the Funeral March and people clapped along with us.

Copies of The Other Room Anthology 2 are still available. Click HERE to buy a copy for £6 including postage within the UK or HERE to buy a copy for £7 including postage anywhere else. The Other Room Anthology 1 is currently out of print.

There will be a funeral precession for the death of our public services on the day of the Royal Wedding, Friday 29th April at 12.30pm. Rosanne Robertson and I will be giving a talk about the cuts to the arts from our own perspectives. Please RSVP to the Facebook event. You must wear funeral attire as a symbolic gesture.

I am over the moon to announce I have been asked to exhibit some of my collage series, ‘Leftovers’ at the Text Festival in Bury, Greater Manchester. This is from the site:

The Text Festival in Bury is an internationally recognised event investigating contemporary language art (poetry, text art, sound and media text, live art). Opening on 29 April 2011, the next Festival will be its third manifestation and run into July.

Against the background of global stylistic multiplicity, the use of language spans many artforms and may even be a unifying field of enquiry, a new definition and a new field of international linguistic art practice and dialogue. The Bury Festival is the leading focus of language in 21st Century art.

The Festival specialises in experiments, in new experiences, in performances and exhibitions that mix artforms in ground-breaking combinations that challenge traditional language art boundaries and offer artists a forum for dialogue and exchange of ideas.

Art Monthly commented of the Festival:

“According to Foucault, the singularities that serve
to rupture and renew normative discourse
always emerge from the interstices – in other words, where nobody is looking. Almost certainly nobody was looking
in the direction of Bury for the emergence of this significant project…”

My work will be exhibited in a show curated by Philip Davenport called A Map of You, part of the Text Festival. Tony Trehy is the overall curator of the Text Festival. The show features truly innovative writers and artists from past and present. I’m very moved to be part of it:

Bury’s newest museum opens its fascinating space and collection to interventions and installations secreted as playful gestures and paratactic commentary. The show will feature works by Matt Dalby, Márton Koppány, Liz Colini, Peter Jaeger & Kaz, Bob Cobbing, participants in the Map of You Project and many more.

I decided to try using red ink as a background possibly or to draw on the text pieces. This turned out to be too cheesy. A bad idea. The simplicity of the pieces and the text was enough and my text written in ink was too literal. These were some of the words I had eaten in the performance. The quietness and subtlety of eating harsh words in the performance works far better than them spelled out in red ink. Too literal and vulgar. Not that I mind vulgar in general but not for this. There is subtlety, haphazardness and complexity that I’m very pleased with. I am always afraid of text in art as I never know whether it actually works. My fear of text is I suppose apt for me to work with as my work deals with fear, my own fears in general. This is quite a scary project for me. I’m happy with the work being made in a haphazard way as I get very nervous about choosing words. I’m terrified of poetry, not reading it but writing it. I think I would drive myself insane if I went at it too much. I prefer the breathing space I’m allowed with visual work as every day it’s something new. It’s not so concrete as the symbol of the word. I’m very free in what I say verbally, but I’m too anxious about writing things down, although I am writing this. I’m not so scared of prose, I have been writing some biographical stuff recently that I have very much enjoyed and been more frank than I ever have before. There are definitely uses for writing for me. I’ve realised I can talk about the wider things, the surface things but the deeper, finer and less graspable/tangible emotional things I need visual work to express. Some people can attain this through words, like poets. My visual work is my poetry I suppose. I would like it to be. I realised reading Heart of Darkness recently how deeply moving and visceral words can be. I forget sometimes, although that probably sounds ridiculous to a lot of people. It’s just like a long poem. Some of it has deeply anti racist sentiment for the time, but due to the time, the descriptive stuff is racist.